This is a platform to comment on local, state and national politics and political news. A special area of interest is the role of corporate media in politics as we move closer and closer to one huge corporation owning all of the media outlets in the country and stifling all independent and critical voices. It will also focus on the absurd 30-plus year Nixonesque political strategy of the “liberal media” lie.
This blog is on temporary hiatus because of my job and thin-skinned Republicans.

Dec 10, 2010

New U.S. Surgeon General report: just inhaling smoke from someone else's cigarette, could be enough to cause a heart attack and even death.

Another U.S. Surgeon General issued a report on the dangers and harm of smoking and secondhand smoke, but this one may be the most powerful ever.

"The chemicals in tobacco smoke reach your lungs quickly every time you inhale, causing damage immediately," Benjamin said in a story in U.S. News & World Report. "Inhaling even the smallest amount of tobacco smoke can also damage your DNA, which can lead to cancer."

The report found that the more you're exposed to deadly cigarette smoke, the harder it is for your body to repair the damage. Smoking also weakens the immune system and makes it harder for the body to respond to treatment if a smoking-linked cancer does arise.

Some 70 of the 7,000 chemicals and compounds in cigarettes can cause cancer, while hundreds of the others are toxic, inflaming the lining of the airways and potentially leading to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a major killer in the United States. The chemicals also corrode blood vessels and increase the likelihood of blood clots, upping the risk for heart conditions.

We already know smoking is responsible for about 85 percent of lung cancers in the United States, but this report puts more emphasis on the link between smoking and the nation's no. 1 killer, heart disease.

As other studies and research have shown, the health problems caused by smoking and secondhand smoke don't stop at cancer and heart disease. Smoking cigarettes can interfere with blood-sugar control for diabetes and can help spur a range of pregnancy and birth-related problems such as miscarriage, low birth weight and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).

With all the proof stacking up, tobacco companies are fighting back. The report found that cigarettes are also getting more addictive with newer formulations getting the nicotine more quickly and efficiently from the lungs -- where it first enters the body -- to the heart and brain. Compounds other than nicotine that are added to cigarettes also help hook people in, the report said.

You've already got the smoking ban you wanted. You refuse to see the effects of the smoking ban, but you have the smoking ban in place. So what is your goal now?

You really ought to learn the difference between conclusive science and conclusions drawn from the evidence.

Yes, smoking is unhealthy. Only a moron would claim it's not. But, will it effect everyone the same way? No.

Is second hand smoke proven to cause illnesses in all that inhale someone's smoke.

The report says it can, it could. It doesn't say that it "does". Some of the evidence points to it, but not all of the evidence points to it.

Regardless, smoking is still legal. As long as it's legal, control of the smokers is nothing more than that. One person controlling another.

There is a very simple way to avoid second hand smoke. Don't stand with people when they are smoking. There is a way to avoid direct inhalation of cigarette smoke. Don't smoke.

You can no longer complain about people smoking around you because of the ban, unless you choose to place yourself next to someone that is in a legal area to smoke. The problem then becomes yours, not the smokers.

But then, that's always been the problem. You could have always stayed about ten feet away from a smoker and avoided second hand smoke. But the socialists democrats just want to control everyone. How does it feel to be a marionnette?

Not only that, but the ones like anonymous coward that try and attack anything I write, not matter how many times I debunk them. As for the pro-smokers, they will continue to deny science and the facts until they take their last breath.

No, anonymous coward, I don’t have the smoking ban I wanted. We still have the casinos, and there are misguided people like you still fighting the obvious with false information. Yes, I have seen the effects of the smoking ban: healthier people and less health care costs.

The evidence speaks for itself. What part of “or even just inhaling smoke from someone else's cigarette, could be enough to cause a heart” don’t you understand, moron?

I’m not endangering anyone's health by just standing there, the 20 percent of smokers are. They need to move.

Again, anonymous coward, there is no such thing as a Socialist Democrat in the United States and that is just a false, Republican smear.

Once again, anonymous wimp, I am still waiting for you to back up your outrageous lie that we were “nearly shoulder to shoulder once.”